#read a lot? read non fiction. read theory. i majored in anthropology and not to sound like That Guy but i feel like spending 4 years focused

[hockeyisforthegays]

Omg you guys are really sweet and so right about Tumblr being a place that everyone's kinda a loser so no one is actually a loser sort thing. I'm in my early twenties so I know on an intellectual level that no one gives a shit but I've also got 🎉 anxiety🎉 hah so even though I can reason there's that little voice that's like 'okay, but what if-' Honestly that's kind of why I think of you as cool. You just seem so sure of yourself and chill, which is amazing to me.

Also you saying 'accused of being cool' mean me cackle haha omg

But yeah this story has become my go to reread when I don't want to have to try and find something I'll like. I mean I doubt I'll find anything this good again

first of all NEVER give up on finding good stuff. the entirety of humanity is working all the time on making art. you will find many things that resonate w you throughout your life. sometimes they'll land on your lap and sometimes you'll have to dig but they are everywhere

becoming chill takes practice. i believe in you. im not equipped to give you the game plan for HOW but like . i have also struggled with anxiety in many areas and i know that you can sort of... learn around it. yk. mental muscle memory. it slowly becomes easier to do the things that you want to do that anxiety is stopping u from. including mental things. & it gets easier to be perceived too

[mediaevalmusereads]

Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies. By Jared Diamond. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2005.

Rating: 4/5 stars

Genre: non-fiction, science, history

Part of a Series? No.

Summary: In this "artful, informative, and delightful" (William H. McNeill, New York Review of Books) book, Jared Diamond convincingly argues that geographical and environmental factors shaped the modern world. Societies that had a head start in food production advanced beyond the hunter-gatherer stage, and then developed writing, technology, government, and organized religion—as well as nasty germs and potent weapons of war—and adventured on sea and land to conquer and decimate preliterate cultures. A major advance in our understanding of human societies, Guns, Germs, and Steel chronicles the way that the modern world came to be and stunningly dismantles racially based theories of human history.

***Full review under the cut.***

Content Warnings: discussions of racism (including genocide, violence, etc.)

Because this book is non-fiction, the structure of this review is going to be different from how I usually do things.

This book has been on my TBR for a while, and I decided to pick it up because I’ve been on a prehistory kick lately. This book is also one of my partner’s favorites, so I figured it would be a good time to read it.

The first thing I really appreciated about this book was the same thing that drew me to David Reich’s Who We Are and How We Got Here. Guns, Germs, and Steel is meant to be something of a hybrid: it’s not a pop-science book, but it’s not aimed solely at specialists, either. Diamond avoids jargon and carefully lays out supporting evidence to prove his points, so the book is easy to follow. I also felt like Diamond was respecting my intelligence by trusting me to understand complex ideas without expecting mastery of the ins and outs of, say, plant domestication. Thus, I think GGS is a good book for those who want to learn more about the development of farming, the spread of ideas such as writing and government, and the effects of disease on colonial subjects - especially if you’re the type of person who wants a little more than pop science.

Diamond also does a good job speaking about the value of his analysis, making clear that he is not out to prove “white superiority” when answering the question “why was Europe the continent that colonized much of the world instead of Asia or Africa?” I do wish Diamond had spent more time refusing racist arguments, however; though I don’t think Diamond is guided by racism, nor do I think he’s trying to argue that white people today have no responsibility when it comes to the impacts of colonization, but there are moments where it seems like he’s absolving white settlers from their actions because “it’s just luck” or geography that allowed certain societies to gain advantages over others. Again, I don’t think Diamond is trying to make excuses, but I would have liked to see a bit more work done to make that point more clear.

Also, because this book was published in the 90s (I read a later edition), there are a few factual errors that result from science, history, and anthropology making new discoveries in the past two decades. I don’t think the errors make Diamond’s main argument worthless, however. He still says that the combination of farming, geography, technology, etc. allowed some societies to “advance” more rapidly than others, and I think that argument is well-supported. It’s just that some of his examples and details could be updated to reflect current knowledge.

The main value of this book, I think, is not to explain *the* reason why Europe was able to colonize much of the world, but to show how farming, animal domestication, etc. gives some societies advantages than can be wielded against others. If I were to critique the central purpose of this book, I would say that I would want a discussion of the rise of white supremacy or what kind of ideologies caused Europe to consider itself entitled to other lands, etc. Suggesting that people just naturally wield their advantages against other societies feels a bit too simple to me, and I think I would have liked to see Diamond consider the non-material conditions that enabled colonization to happen (if his purpose was truly to answer the question he set out to address).

But as it stands, this book made me think a lot about the importance of farming, technology, geography, etc. and how societal “advancements” don’t just spring up out of nowhere. To some degree, people are shaped by the material conditions of their environments, and while the environment can’t explain everything, it can shed light on some things. If Diamond had a companion book about the ideologies or power structures that enabled colonialism to happen, I think the duology would make for a convincing body of scholarship.

[sol1056]

think hard about the baggage

There’s a theory going around about how Earth comes into the picture, why a Lion was on Earth, why 10,000 years ago, etc. One example: this conversation about some of the details/reasoning. I’m not linking more than that, because I don’t see a reason to call out anyone having the conversation. I personally consider the theory kind of predictable, and such a classic SF move, which is why I have a feeling it’s where the story is headed. I just haven’t (so far) really seen the EPs/writers show much inclination to break new ground in terms of plotting or major story movements.

That said, I’m going to tell you why this particular SF trope gives me the heebie-jeebies, and why I ask -- if you think this is an awesome twist -- to give it serious thought. Because this particular trope is rooted in some pretty ugly racism, and you need to ask yourself whether you're willing to take the story-space to handle the baggage you’ll inherit from that racist trope.

Here’s how the trope started, back in the so-called Golden Age, of American/western speculative fiction. Its roots lie, as do most SF tropes, in the scientific explorations and questions of the time.

Anthropology was on the rise, with academia studying ‘primitive peoples’ (ie Ishi, and various South American and Oceanian peoples). Unfortunately, anthropology suffered from a strongly paternalistic, white-centric, patronizing perspective (go read Edward Said’s Orientalism, hell, read it anyway, it’ll be good for your writer’s brain). 

The general argument went something like this: to understand who we were before we developed written language, large civilizations, and advanced technology, let’s study primitive/pre-modern people. Maybe we can get some insight on what we were like, as humans. This begs the question: if these people remain primitive, and haven’t made the leap to a modern (read: western) state, how did modern society do it? 

The problem was a lot of early anthropologists had some major blinders, based in some racist assumptions about what it meant to be white (and western) vs non-white/non-western. (It is also very, very important that you do not forget that this conversation was happening at the same time that the US was practicing major eugenics on non-white and other subaltern peoples, to reduce (or outright end) their populations. There were some very distinct lines being drawn about who could ever  ‘achieve’ Western/modern society, and who was forever shut out.)

At roughly the same time, archaeology was growing out of grave-robbing and becoming a more organized endeavor. Again, keep in mind that archaeology was also dominated by western, anglo (and male) perspectives -- who in turn were heavily influenced by the belief that non-white peoples were separate, inferior races.

So you can imagine the confusion at finding things that did not ‘fit’ their racist preconceptions: Costa Rica’s stone spheres, the Nazca lines, the Antikythera mechanism, the Qanāt, etc. Hell, the Egyptian pyramids got this in spades: an agricultural, primitive, brown people in north Africa couldn’t possibly move, let alone build, such massive monuments. They must’ve had help, somehow. 

This is where speculative fiction leapt into the fray, gleefully playing in the puddles left behind by a rain of science (more like pseudoscience, if we’re being honest). Of course those primitive peoples had help -- in the form of Highly Advanced Aliens! What a lovely twist, especially if you’re a white westernized reader who’s a little uncomfortable with the possibility that non-white people might be your equal in technological innovations and cultural development. 

Quoting Karin Tidbeck, who says it more succinctly:

The ancient alien theory doesn’t stand up to scrutiny, of course, and as I got older I also realized that the premise is inherently problematic. The civilizations claimed to have had contact with aliens in ancient times are mostly non-western, many of them located in places that once colonized by the West. There is an underlying assumption that these ancient civilizations were savages who couldn’t do math on their own. Someone had to come and teach them. Realizing that one of my favorite theories was built on a racist and colonialist foundation was less than fun, but it’s part of growing up.

I am not saying all past SF tropes should be tossed. I am saying that it behooves us, as writers, to be aware of questionable origins in our tropes. We need to give careful thought to whether the story can bear up under the weight of that baggage. 

Because the baggage is there. It’s a long sordid history of racist and colonialist assumptions, and it’s not going to go away just because the writer doesn’t realize, doesn’t care, or insists it doesn’t apply to their particular story. It will always apply, because it’s part of the shared cultural foundations that readers bring to the page, even if the writer does their best to plug fingers in their ears. 

And the icing on this racist cake is that Helpful Ancient Aliens is also just plain boring. It’s not a twist anymore, people. It got done, and done, and is still done every time someone expresses amazement that any ancient, non-white, non-western people could ever be innovative on their own.

At this point, I’ve seen the VLD EPs/writers falling into trap after trap, so I’m not really holding my breath, here. We can’t fix their story, but we can be aware and refuse to do the same. 

Fight the tropes, my good people. Don’t be lazy. Question your SF tropes. Pry them apart and subvert them, or just set them aside. Know your history. Think hard before you pick up that baggage.